Metro Briefing | New York: Bill To Increase Commuter Benefit Advances

By Sewell Chan (NYT); Compiled by John Sullivan

Published: May 18, 2005

Commuters would be able to set aside more of their wages to pay for transit expenses, and New York State would receive a $16.7 billion increase in highway and transit spending through 2009, under the $295 billion federal transportation bill passed by the Senate yesterday. Under the bill, the amount that commuters can withhold each month, as a pretax deduction, to pay for subway, bus, train or ferry fares would rise to $155 from $105 , and then to $200 starting in 2010. The bill would also add the name of Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who died in 2003 and was a major influence on two previous federal transportation bills, in 1991 and in 1998, to Interstate 86, a highway that runs along the southern tier of New York. The bill is $11 billion larger than the version passed by the House in March. Sewell Chan (NYT)